Determining whether barcodes on investigational compounded sterile products are scannable by an IV workflow management system

Purpose The goals of this project were to determine (1) what proportion of compounded sterile product investigational products (CSP IPs) stocked by our institution’s investigational drug service have barcodes, and (2) whether CSP IPs that do have barcodes contain a number that is usable by our institution’s IV workflow management system. A secondary goal was to determine sponsor willingness to embed a drug identifier in the barcodes. Summary A survey of the site’s inventory was conducted to identify CSP IPs. The vials were examined to determine if they contained a barcode, and if so, scanning was performed to determine what number was embedded in each barcode. In addition, sponsors of vials with barcodes were queried about whether they would be willing to embed a drug identifier, while sponsors with no barcodes were queried about their willingness to add barcodes. Conclusion The study found that 66.9% of the CSP IP vials contained barcodes. However, the numbers embedded in the barcodes on most of these IPs varied from vial to vial. The structure of the numbers embedded in each barcode did not match the GS1-128 structure seen on FDA-approved products, and there was no usable drug identifier in any barcode in the opinion of the team’s informatics pharmacist.